Eight is GREAT!!

Nathan celebrated his eighth birthday ON his actual birthday, thanks to being a leap day baby.  Since it was his actual birthday, instead of the 28th, I had them put his birthday on the Marquee at school.  He had a great birthday and is looking forward to his baptism.

2nd Grade Program and Orchestra UIL

Nathan had his second grade program. He did well and sang loud.

I took some pictures of him for his baptism invitation.  I had wanted to have Kaori do it at the temple grounds, but we kept having bad weather or busy schedules and I ran out of time, so I snapped these after church. 

I was not subbing on the day of Eliza's orchestra UIL contest at Allen High School so I went to listen to them play.  They did really well and I was most impressed with watching them in the sight reading room.  I'm glad I'm able to go to things like this during the day for the kids.

 

Wylie Opry, Jonah Solo, Silly Willy and Valentine's Day

Annmarie got invited back to the Wylie Opry.  This time she sang "She's in Love With the Boy" by Trisha Yearwood and "Grandpa, Tell Me 'Bout the Good Old Days" by the Judds. She did really well.

Jonah competed in the solo contest for band and got the highest award possible, which I don't remember what it is, a 1?  Well, he did well.

Amazon sent me thjs photo of the package they left and I thought it was funny that Willy was right there in the window, probably barking his head off at the guy, so I saved the photo.

On Valentine's Day, this plate came out of the dishwasher exactly like this.  Broken in half in the most peculiar way.  We had heart-shaped waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.

 

Church Prom for Travis and Eliza

Travis and Eliza went to the church prom.  They went and had pictures done by Stefanie Zeltner and then they came to our house for dinner before heading off for the dance.  We fed them chicken cordon bleu and pasta with salad and bread and for dessert a choice of raspberry cream pie or chocolate cream pie.

Travis took Sarah Rigby from our ward and Eliza invited her boyfriend, Thorne Owen, to come with her.  The kids in the group include Caden Zeltner and his date, Eleanor Goode and Rylan Zeltner, Hailey Loveless and Levi Young from Wylie 1st ward, Keira Mason, Eliza and Thorne Owen, Travis and Sarah Rigby.  A few more people joined up for the dinner, but I don't have their names.

LDS Prom Dinner

 

We offered to host the prom dinner again like we did last year.  This year, there were 13 kids there instead of only 5.  I have more ideas on how i would like to do it in the future, with twinkle lights and everything. Hopefully we get more opportunities. This time they had chicken cordon bleu.  Jonah, Annmarie and Nathan were the best servers and Corey and I made all the food and ran everything.  It went pretty well.

Bye Bye Birdie and Birthday Book

I took Eliza and Annmarie to see JJ Pearce's musical "Bye Bye Birdie". The cast did not disappoint, but I would say that the movie with Ann Margret is better than the broadway version of it, and I had read that before. The story is better in it. The talented cast did a great job and we recognized quite a few people from "Mean Girls" that we saw last summer. 

Also, I bought a birthday book for Nathan to donate to the school library in honor of his birthday. I did it last year with Nathan and Annmarie. I happened to be at the school shelving books in the library when they recognized the birthday book recipients in a Gator Gathering, so I popped out for it. He is so excited for his eighth birthday!